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JFK Middle I.B. program gets official certification

A big part of the school district’s efforts to boost enrollment at John F. Kennedy Middle School by making the Riviera Beach school more attractive got an international endorsement this week.

The International Baccalaureate, a Switzerland-based non-profit educational foundation that certifies international baccalaureate academic-themed programs at schools worldwide, gave its official certification to the “Middle Years Program” that is offered to J.F.K. Middle students.

The middle years classes run all the way through sophomore year in high school for students, after which they go into the main international baccalaureate field of study which results in a high school diploma. The school district has decided to tie Kennedy with nearby Suncoast high school so that students who start the I.B. program at Kennedy automatically get into Suncoast to continue their middle years classes there, said School District Choice and Career Options Director Pete Licata.

Kennedy has been working to get this certification for more than a year. Kennedy Principal Corey Brooks in the spring of 2012 cited it as one of the main strategies he planned to use to attract students back to Kennedy, which at the time was one of the emptiest schools in the district with only about 42 percent of its student capacity being used and hundreds of students opting out to go to other schools.

The certification ties Kennedy to the highly popular Suncoast High School and gives students an incentive to go to Kennedy so they can get into Suncoast, Licata said.

The school has already been offering the international baccalaureate classes to students as it waited for the official certification from the foundation. This year, enrollment at Kennedy jumped by 198 students, which increased the amount of student space used up to 55 percent of capacity.